Thursday, May 19, 2011

Insert Apocalyptic Philosophical Title Here

She had taken Shibuya by storm. Bella Francine Carolyn Michelle Tracy Hannah Annabelle Paula Jenny Darline Karen Ginger Aubrey the Fourth had shown up inexplicably in the Reapers Game on the first day, stunning all who saw her with her flawless porcelain skin, immaculate long eyelashes, perfect full lips and lustrous green hair. The Reapers Game was a dark tournament of sorts, in which the recently-dead were issued daily missions in order to win their lives back.

Bella then proceeded to win the Game and defeat the Game Master without a partner. Not only that, she also fought her way through several high-class Reaper officers before finally facing off against Joshua, the Composer and ruler of Shibuya. She easily defeated him, though she spared his life. (After all he was quite possibly the most perfect person in the fandom! ...apart from her, of course.) Joshua, stunned at her power, beauty, sense of justice and honesty, and even more beauty, readily stepped down from his position as Composer and allowed Bella to take over the job for him.

Bella quickly mastered the job, her Games were swift and just. Those with pure hearts she granted instant reincarnation. Those with darker souls, however, she instantly and personally Erased from existence. Not only that, but she recognized the talent of Harrier Reaper Uzuki Yashiro and gave her a promotion... to Conductor. Plus, she also gave uber-lazy Harrier Reaper Koki Karyia as many days off as he liked, not to mention an endless supply of bean paste. She even got Neku Sakuraba to forgive his killer, Yoshira Kiriyu. Under her rule, Shibuya thrived.

At the moment, both Bella and Joshua were in the Dead Gods Pad, the Reaper Headquarters. Bella was nestled in the crook of Joshua's arm, her head pressed against his chest. After much coaxing, Joshua had finally convinced her to relate her long, terrible, and extremely tragic past to him. Now the two of them were sitting in silence, staring at the fish swimming beneath the glass floor. Joshua stared down at the tragic heroine in his arms. Despite her sorrow at recalling the unimaginably horrible events of her past, even her tears formed perfect trails as they rolled down her flawless skin.

Joshua had been entranced by this vision of utter beauty and perfection ever since she had broken into the Room of Reckoning and proceeded to beat the crap out of him.

"So... you killed yourself?" Joshua asked gently.

Bella nodded, still crying. "I just couldn't escape from my incredibly tragic past, and I felt like nobody would ever love me, so..."

Bella broke off as Joshua stared at her in shock. "What?" He asked softly as he tenderly turned her head towards him. Slowly, gently, their lips drew closer to one another.

"How could anybody not love you?" Joshua asked. "You're perfect..."

"All right, that's enough. If I hear the word 'perfect' one more time, I'm gonna puke!"

The Sue and the Composer whirled to see who had spoken, The speaker was a boy in his mid-teens with tightly curled brown hair, hazel eyes and rounded rectangular glasses. He was dressed very simply in a plain white t-shirt and worn blue-jeans. A pair of earbuds were slung around his neck and trailed down to his pocket, Heavy Metal pulsing from them. He leaned casually against the door to the Dead Gods Pad, smirking.

"Who are you?" Bella demanded.

"Allow me to introduce myself." The boy pushed his glasses up. "My name is Ben. James Ben." He said in a faux british accent, striking a very familliar pose.

Before anyone could say anything, a high-pitched screeching noise reached their ears. The teen grimaced and braced himself.

"LaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAMEEE!" Something came flying out of nowhere and blasted Ben in the side, sending him flying.

When the dust cleared, Ben was embedded about a foot into the wall opposite of where he'd been standing and what appeared to be a 3-foot polished stick of wood with claws had grabbed a hold of his head and was repeatedly bashing it back into the wall.

"BAD BEN! BAD BEN! BAD BEN!" It shouted, continuing it's abuse.

Both Bella and Joshua sweatdropped.

"SHIRLEY!" Ben's voice was muffled from where it was pressed into the wall. "Can we at least get this over with? Then, afterwards, I'll let you use the cattle prod on the high setting."

"Fine..." The stick jumped off his back as he extricated himself from the wall. There was a trickle of blood running from his forehead.

"Like I said, you can call me Ben," He said, dusting bits of wall from his hair and adjusting his glasses. "And this here's Shirley the Cliche Stick." He jabbed a thumb towards the twig.

"The what stick?" Joshua asked.

"My muse," Ben explained. "Whenever I do or say something stupid-"

"Which is all the time!" Shirley cut in.

"-it's her job to snap me out of it. As you just saw just now." The Sue and Composer sweatdropped again.

"So, what are you doing here?" Bella demanded, though she had a sinking feeling she already knew.

"I'm from the Anti-Cliche and Mary-Sue Elimination Society," Ben said, pushing his glasses up again. "And you, Bella-whatever-your-name-is, are under arrest for fandom mutilation."

"What?" Joshua's eyes narrowed and he moved in front of Bella protectively.

"Sorry to tell you this," Ben said, taking a swig from what appeared to be a flask. "But your little girlfriend here is an unnatural being. She's twisting your world, not to mention you, to her desires."

"I desire nothing more than utter perfection and happiness to all who live in this world!" Bella shouted, obviously miffed at being called 'unnatural'.

"And that's the 'unnatural' part, baby," Ben said. "Listen, just make it easy on everybody, come quietly and I promise I won't have to hurt you."

"Hurt her?" Joshua asked in a quietly dangerous voice. "Hurt the most perfect woman in the world?" His voice began to rise. "Hurt the woman I love? I think not, because I'm going to Erase you, and the very memory of you, from the Music!"

As he shouted, a silver aura surrounded him, and his already ashen hair and pale skin turned silver.

"Oh boy, here we go," Ben sighed. "Shirley, would you take care of the pissed-off, brainwashed demi-god, please?"

"Sure thing." Shirley said and trotted right up to Joshua.

Joshua stared down at her from where he stood currently hovering in the air. "Just what do you think you're doin-"

He was cut off as Shirley acted, very quickly. One second she was underneath him, and the next she was clinging to his pale blue button-down.

She gave Joshua an extremely disturbing leer, showing off way too many fangs before swiping at his forehead, leaping down and scuttling back over to Ben.

Everyone just stared at the hovering pretty-boy for several seconds.

"Juuust wait for it..." Ben said confidently.

Just then, a miniscule cut popped open on Joshua's forehead and a single bright red drop of blood oozed through the opening and plopped right on the end of Joshua's nose. He went cross-eyed trying to get a better look at it.

There was silence for a few more seconds. Then, Joshua screamed. Very loudly. And we don't mean that deep-masculine-shout type of screaming, we mean the three-year-old-little-girl-whose-mommy-refused-to-buy-her-a-My-Little-Pony type of screaming. You know what I'm talking about.

Joshua clapped a hand to his (what he considered gushing) forehead, ripped open the hidden door to the Room of Reckoning and vanished inside, slamming the door behind him.

Ben adjusted his glasses for the third time in ten minutes. "Let me get one thing straight." He said. "You Mary-Sues and Gary-Stus are supposed to be perfect, right?"

"Not 'supposed to be,'" Bella shot back. "'Are' perfect!"

"Maybe so," Ben smirked. "But there's still one rule even you abominations must live by..."

"Oh?" Bella folded her arms. "And what would that be?"

Ben stuck a dramatic pose, pointing straight at Bella.

"Don't mess with nukes!"

Bella just stared at him blankly. Ben grinned evilly and took off again in the opposite direction. Bella was about to start after him when when she heard a whistling sound.

The Sue looked up just in time to see a thermo-nuclear warhead falling towards her.

"Oh," She growled. "He is gonna pay for that..."

-

Sanae Hanekoma looked out the window of the WildKat cafe just in time to see a mushroom cloud blossom over southeastern Shibuya. He shook his head and chuckled as he dialed Joshua's number on his cell phone. "Heya, Prince? Yeah, it's me. You know how I've been bugging you to remodel lately?"

-

Adrian pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to remain calm as he addressed the new Society member sitting across from him in the Library Arcanium.

"Let me get this straight," He said slowly, struggling to contain his temper.

"Not only did you forget to use any of your Anti-Sue tools, but you let the Sue get away and you nuked an entire fandom?" His voice had risen considerably towards the end of that statement.

Ben chewed on the inside his cheek. "Wellll... not an entire fandom, per se. Just half... or one-fourth if you consider the RealGround and UnderGround to be-"

Adrian shook his head as if to clear it. "I don't care!" He shouted, waving his hands. Then what Ben had said hit him.

"Wait, you said 'half a fandom'? Do I want to know what caused the other half?" He asked.

Ben took a deep breath. "Well, after Shirley and I got Joshua calmed down I offered him some... uh... Whiske,y and he went a little hyper..." He took a furtive swig from his flask.

A vein stood out in Adrian's forehead. He snatched the flask away from Ben and turned to pour it down a nearby sink. He held it over the sink for several seconds, but nothing came out. He held it over his head and closed one eye to try to peek inside, but a large brown blob of liquid landed right on his eye.

Adrian swore and rubbed his eye, attempting to dispel the substance. Then, he stopped and licked some of the liqud off his finger. His face instantly twisted into a mask of disgust. He tossed the flask back to Ben, one hand at his throat, gagging.

"W-hat the h-e-ck is that stuff?" he demanded, gasping for breath.

"Iced tea." Ben said mildly.

"With how much sugar?" Adrian asked, a dangerous glint in his eye.

"Erm.." Ben stalled, not meeting his eye. "I lost count after about... five cups..."

Adrian was still swelling with anger when Blake stuck his head in the door.

"Oh, hey! Ben, Adrian, found you both! Listen, Ben, your pet walking-stick-thingy is eating the books over in the Teen Series section. Thought you might want to know..."

"It's WHAT?" Adrian roared as Ben ran for his life for the second time that day.

After hiding for an hour he emerged from his hiding spot and tracked down Shirley.

As the two of them strolled down the Arcanium's halls Ben asked, "Were you really eating books earlier?"

Shirley grinned. "Just the Twilight ones."

Ben rolled his eyes. "You have no taste whatsoever, do you? C'mon, let's go get some cheeseburgers and Red Bull."